Given the prevalence of digital cameras and home computers, users now frequently create photo collages made up of multiple images laid out on a single page. These photo collages are often made up of images of various sizes. Moreover, a given photo collage may include two or more images which are related and for which it is desirable to maintain a specific sequence (e.g. several key frame images from a video that progressively show a soccer ball being kicked into a goal).
Computer software is currently available for arranging images, such as photographs, video frames, graphic images, and blocks of text, on a page. Such software typically develops what are often called photo albums, comprising one or more pages with images selected by the user and arranged in various manners. A photo album page, as the term is used herein, refers to a page of fixed size having multiple images positioned thereon. A page may be a printed page, or a representation of a page, such as on a computer screen, television, or a projection screen.
Most conventional approaches to photo album layout rely on templates as a means for distributing images on the page. However, the number of possible form factors of printable content is increasing (e.g. panoramas, cropped photos, videos with varying number of keyframes, etc.). As this trend continues, it becomes difficult to provide sets of templates that adequately provide for all possible combinations of differently-shaped images and for all possible user preferences regarding the arrangement of images on the page.
Accordingly, automated software programs have been proposed that appear to position images without using a preconceived template. One example is the “Auto-Collage” function of Fotofusion, a software package available from Lumapix.
When images are positioned on a page, whether or not using a preconceived template, it is often desirable to minimize the amount of empty space on the page.
In the Fotofusion software this appears to be accomplished by first designating a region of the page to each photo, where the regions collectively cover the entire page, and then cropping each photo to make it conform to the specific space requirements of the allotted space. However, the initial set of regions determined by the software appears to be selected arbitrarily. This can often result in significant cropping of the image—leading to overall image quality deterioration, significant content loss, and general user dissatisfaction.
It is therefore desirable to provide a method for placing images on a page in such a way that the amount of the page covered by the images is maximized while the amount of photographic content cropped away is minimized.